


Gentleman’s Choice

by aralias



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Drunkenness, F/M, In Vino Veritas, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 11:50:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2811011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aralias/pseuds/aralias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dayna, Tarrant, Avon and several bottles of Vila’s best liquor are stuck on the Scorpio together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gentleman’s Choice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Clocketpatch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clocketpatch/gifts).



Nothing would have happened if Vila hadn’t insisted they go into quarantine, following a trip to the highly infectious planet of Firumgol.

“But he’s only doing it to wind you up,” Tarrant protested as the pronouncement hung in the air on the Scorpio flight deck.

Avon looked wearily from Dayna (standing her arms crossed) and back to Tarrant (full of indignation at his civil liberties being curtailed and by a Delta idiot). It struck him again how difficult it was to be a leader and of these people.  

“I know that,” he said to Tarrant. “He also happens to be right.” He switched the communicator back on. “All right, Vila. We’ll stay up here for twenty-four hours. If nothing has happened, if there’s no trace of contamination, then you teleport us back down immediately, understood? I don’t want any last minute changes of mind as you scurry to hide the evidence of debauchery, that you’ve been dressing up in Dayna’s clothes-”

“Would I do a thing like that?” Vila’s voice said.

“Probably not with Soolin on the base, but you never know,” Avon said. “Twenty-four hours, Vila. Scorpio out.” He cut the connection.

“What a rotten end to a terrible day,” Dayna said feelingly as she dropped into her seat on the flight deck.

*

They did sleep on Scorpio, of course, but nobody liked to. The sleeping booths were small and cramped, and there were only two of them – Dorian not being a man of many friends or acquaintences. Not many live ones, anyway.

There were no showers, and (thinking it would be a quick trip) none of the crew had brought a change of clothes either. Or thought to re-stock the food machines.

“But _look_ what I’ve found,” Dayna announced triumphantly, rising from her crouch near the open access-panel, a bottle in one hand. “Vila’s little stash.”

Tarrant crossed to her as she uncorked it. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know,” Dayna said, reeling back somewhat from her investigatory sniff. “But it’s strong, whatever it is.”

“Any food in there?” Tarrant asked, peering into the open panel.

“Just more of these.”

“ _Wonderful_. Just what we need. _Thank you,_ Vila,” Tarrant said sarcastically. He straightened, another bottle in each of his hands. “Well, I suppose we know what we’re doing tonight.”

“Enduring,” Avon said. He was already stretched out on one of the reclining seats, one hand over his face in an attempt to block out the light and what was going on around him. Despite preferring privacy at night, Avon tended to avoid the sleeping booths as he had enough problems with his back, without forcing it to still support him after a night curled up in a box. Unfortunately that meant people could and would continue to talk to him when he didn’t want to talk to them.

 _“Getting drunk,”_ Tarrant said. He pressed a shot glass (which Vila had also thoughtfully provided and in quantity) between the fingers of Avon’s uppermost hand.

Avon pulled the hand down slowly and carefully. He held the glass back out to Tarrant, his expression flat. “I don’t like to drink”

“You don’t like to do anything,” Dayna pointed out.

“Come on, Avon,” Tarrant said. “Live a little.” He downed his own shot glass like a dare. “After all, if _I_ can do it...?”

Avon glared witheringly at him, and downed his own glass. Dayna whooped.

*

_Two hours later..._

Dayna and Tarrant got drunk and happy quickly; Avon got drunk quickly. None of them were used to the alcohol.

“Did you see-?” Tarrant said. He gasped for breath, “Did you see his-?”

“Did _you_ see his-?” Dayna said, wiping tears from her eyes and trying to indicate something on her face.

“I _know_!” Tarrant said. They fell about laughing again.

Avon had long ago lost track of what they were talking about, but he doubted it was important.

*

_Three hours later..._

“Do you remember,” Dayna said, trying to push herself up into a sitting position and failing, “that time that Vila saved Avon’s life?” She made another, better attempt. “You know, with the- that tennis racquet thing. That was so weird.”

“ _That_ ,” Avon said firmly, “did not happen.”

“Yes, it _did_ ,” Tarrant said.

“Yes, it did,” Dayna echoed. She threw one the cushions from the sleeping booths in roughly Avon’s direction, but it missed, which was fortunate because he wouldn’t have been able to deflect it.

“No, it-”

“What I was going to say,” Dayna said, “before I was... _interrupted_ , was that I don’t know why he bothered.”

“ _Because_ ,” Tarrant said, shuffling closer to her to impart a hefty secret. He looked at Avon and then lowered his voice to a still-obvious whisper, “Vila and Avon are _friends_ , Dayna. They like each other.”

“No,” Dayna said, shocked. Tarrant nodded hugely. Dayna looked back at Avon, who was slumped in the recliner and glaring at her, and grinned. “I would never have guessed.”

“I think,” Tarrant said, still in a loud whisper, “we all like Avon really. Shh. Don’t tell him.” Then he looked back, saw Avon was there and had obviously heard, and started laughing again.

*

_Three hours after that..._

“Avon,” Dayna said, sitting down in front of him on the floor, “we have a very serious question to ask you.”

“No,” Avon said.

“No you won’t answer it, or no you don’t think we have a serious question,” Tarrant said, sitting down next to Dayna, also cross-legged on the floor. “Because we do have a serious question. It’s very serious. And you _do_ have to answer it.”

Avon thought about this for a moment, and everything he’d already heard that evening. “No,” he said eventually. “Go away.”

“OK. Here’s the question,” Dayna said brightly. “Tarrant and I were just talking about you-”

“My answer remains the same,” Avon said. “Go away. Leave me alone. Do something else. Understand?”

“And we were wondering which of us you would sleep with if you had to,” Dayna said.

Avon stared at her. Then his gaze slid to Tarrant and he raised an eyebrow. 

“This isn’t an offer,” Tarrant said quickly.

“No,” Dayna said. “As if! I got over that _really_ quickly. No, this is just hyper- hyper-”

“Competitive?” Tarrant said.

“ _No_ ,” Dayna said.

“Hypothetical,” Avon said and then wished he hadn’t attracted attention to himself again, because Dayna grinned and said,

“Exactly! I think you’d choose me. But _Tarrant_ thinks-”

“I think you’d choose me,” Tarrant said. He gave what he must have hoped was a charming smile, apparently no longer concerned with the possibility that Avon might take him seriously. “I mean, why wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, I’ve no _idea_ ,” Dayna said sarcastically. “Tell him, Avon.

Avon thought about this for another moment, finding himself seriously weighing the options. Then he shook himself. “No,” he said. He began to try and get up, but he was unsteady due to the alcohol and slumped back down.

“Please!” Dayna said. “Please, please, please, please-”

“Come _on_ ,” Tarrant said. “You’re always keeping things from us!”

That hit close to home, and made Avon think unpleasantly of Anna and Terminal and the black gold. He didn’t want people to think of him the way they’d thought of their previous leader.

“Very well,” he said, pulling himself together. “You want the truth, then here it is.” He pointed at Dayna. “ _You_ ,” he said, into her hopeful smile, “are too young. I think of you as a daughter.” 

“What?” Dayna said.

Tarrant punched the air. “Ha! I knew it. In your face, Dayna."

“And you,” Avon said, turning to him, “are too cocky. You’re too tall, too thin, your hair’s too long, and you’re not as inspiring or funny as-”

He realised he’d said too much already. This time, he managed to get to his feet properly.

“I think of _you_ ,” he said to Tarrant, trying to recover, “as a,” he’d meant to say ‘necessary evil’, but somehow it came out as “comrade. That’s it. I wouldn’t sleep with _either_ of you. Now leave me _alone_.”

He staggered off to the sleeping booths, and locked himself inside. Whatever this did to his back, it would be worth it if he managed to escape from this conversation.

*

Out on the flight deck, Tarrant and Dayna looked at each other, eyebrows raised.

“ _Well_ ,” Dayna said, pretending to be offended.

“Well indeed,” Tarrant said. After a moment, he said, “Is my hair really too long?”

“No,” Dayna said. She reached out and stroked her fingers through his curls. “It looks nice. It feels nice too.”

“Thanks,” Tarrant said.

After another moment, and without removing her hand, Dayna said sadly, “Am I really too young?”

“Not for me,” Tarrant said.

Dayna raised her eyebrows, and awkwardly withdrew her hand. “Oh,” she said.

“Do you want to hear another secret?” Tarrant asked. She shrugged, which he considered as good an indication as any that he should continue. “I’d choose you.”

Dayna’s face was amused. “Over Avon?”

“Over anyone,” Tarrant said.

“Oh,” Dayna said again. Then she smiled. “I’d choose you, too.” He drew closer, and she added, “Over Avon.”

“...Oh,” Tarrant said and began to draw back.

“And everyone else I’ve ever met,” Dayna finished joyfully, and tugged him into their first proper kiss.

*

Once he’d ascertained it was probably safe, Avon emerged from the sleeping booth. He found Dayna and Tarrant lying in a contented, wine-soaked heap not far from Slave’s visual-reference-point on the floor. They both seemed to be asleep, and they were both quite definitely naked – their clothes scattered around them, as though there had been an explosion and this was the wreckage.

Avon’s head and his back hurt, and he knew there were still twelve hours of quarantine left before he could teleport down to Xenon base and have a bath. He looked at the young, happy couple, wrapped in each other, smiling peacefully, and felt a twinge in his heart as well.

“God, I miss Blake,” he said without meaning to. Then, in case anybody had heard that, he kicked a wine bottle away from him and added scathingly, “Nothing as ridiculous as this happened while he was in charge.”

Averting his eyes as Dayna stretched, he resolved, as he had before, to remove all the alcohol and all the adrenalin and soma from Xenon base. To make sure he’d got it all this time. And to never drink again. And to find Blake... so things could go back to normal.


End file.
